We confess to
a piece of cheeky editorial licence with the introduction of the sociobiology of
Edward O. Wilson into a series on groupwork. But, on the one hand, the
Wilson's Ladder concept does relate to groups, even though this is stretching a
point in the context of this groupwork series; and, on the other hand, it
provides a neat introduction to our next intended Main Theme of Nurturing
Ecological Potential.

Edward O. Wilson
has been described in many different ways and by many differing terms,
from flattering to vitriolic. A world-famous biologist and Pulitzer
Prize-winning author, he has been hailed as the natural successor to
Darwin by some and condemned as sexist, racist, and fascist by others.

He was
undisputedly the world's foremost authority on ants, but
controversy derived from the new field of science developed in
his book Sociobiology in the 1970s. It argued that social
animals, including humans, behave largely according to rules written in
their very genes. The theory which seemed to hark back to racist
ideologies produced the charge that he was suggesting that some human
groups were biologically superior to others.

Over the years
sociobiology has been refined and is now a dictionary word, and
most of the new generation of so-called evolutionary psychologists have adopted it
wholeheartedy.

Here then is
the theory of Wilson's Ladder, in essence, with some comments. The "wrapover"
into our next main theme will be provided in our The
Last Word section.

1.IF
a behaviour maximizes fitness, then the behaviour will exist in virtually all
members of a group.

2.
IF
a behaviour exists in virtually all members of a group, then the behaviour
came about by natural selection.

3.
IF
a behaviour came about by natural selection, then there were once individual
differences in the group's genetic makeup.

4.
IF
there were once individual differences in the group's genetic makeup, then
there are differences in the genetic makeup of the present group from its
prehistoric ancestors.

5.
IF
there are differences in the genetic makeup of the present group from its
prehistoric ancestors, then the genetically adaptive behavior will be
difficult to modify by social engineering.

6.
THEREFORE,
IF a behaviour maximizes fitness, THEN the genetically adaptive behaviour will
be difficult to modify by social engineering.

Wilson's
ladder basically explains the climb from "nature to human nature" (Kitcher,
1987, 63). First, a group of people in a particular environment will exhibit a
particular behaviour. This behaviour is reinforced via variables in the
environment, and as the behaviour become more and more prevalent, it soon
becomes genetic and is passed on from generation to generation through the
genes.